Panel discussion

'Real' problems?

We are so fortunate to live in this area! While the rest of our state is worried about jobs, crime and health care costs, our representatives believe our biggest concerns are the speed limit on the interstate and the language in which government business is conducted.

While I'm in favor of increasing Wisconsin's rural interstate speed limit by 5 mph, making English Wisconsin's official language is a bigoted waste of taxpayer money, proposed only to pander to some ill-informed voters' xenophobic idiocies.

Sadly, I do understand why these laws are being proposed: Elections are next year, and feel-good fluff is the best these politicians can do since they don't know how to solve our real problems.

Carla Halvorson

Two Rivers

Dream or nightmare?

In Watauga County, N.C., the Republican controlled Board of Elections voted to close the voting site at a predominantly black local college, Appalachian State. This same board limited early voting to one site in the town of Boone, with that lone site in a white area of Boone.

The board combined three Boone precincts, creating the state's third-largest voting precinct with 9,300 voters at a site designed for 1,500 with only 35 parking spots, 20 reserved for poll workers. This site is not accessible by public transportation, over one mile from the black campus, along a 45 mph road with no sidewalks.

Martin Luther King fought for black voting rights, only to have North Carolina take away those rights. Happy 50th anniversary of your dream, MLK.

Jerome Bolle

Whitelaw

Perch fry, anyone?

When I was young (a long time ago), Lake Michigan was called federal water. A fishing license wasn't required, and there wasn't a limit on either the number you could catch, or possess. Family fish fries were a common event. Perch became such a popular Friday night fare that their numbers started to decline. The DNR, in an effort to conserve the perch resource, put limits on the daily catch, and on possession numbers.

Today the limit you are allowed depends on where you're fishing. Lake Winnebago has a daily limit of 25, Green Bay and its contributaries 15 per day, and if you want to fish off the shoreline of Manitowoc you're only allowed five per day. Possession limits have followed the rule of twice the daily bag limit. I feel that the possession limit should be no lower than 50 per license per household. Who among you would like to be invited to a fish fry that stipulates, "bring your own fish?"

Les Graebel

Manitowoc

It's not about jobs

Jobs is a good word to use when we're looking at statistics, but when it comes to talking about us as citizens and employment, it hides the reality of the numbers. It's not about jobs, it's about livelihoods. It's about real people who need to work and earn a living! How can we as citizens "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" if we cannot earn a living to provide ourselves and our families with food, shelter and clothing, not to mention an education or entertainment?

It's not jobs; it's our neighbors, friends, families all across Manitowoc who do not have a livelihood, who can't make their mortgages, pay their taxes or help drive the local economy. How can that be good for this community we call Manitowoc, city and county?

Why do "We the People of the United States" allow it?

Just me?

Ed Hansen

Manitowoc

Birther checklist

Don't ignore it

On Aug. 20, in Duncan, Okl., three African-American teenagers murdered Chris Lane, a white Australian national, as he jogged along a road. The motive, according to one teen, was that "we were going to kill somebody." This international incident received no recognition by Barack Obama or Al Sharpton and very little attention from the liberal mass media.

The Rev. Jackson admitted the murders were "frowned upon." This issue of unprovoked, racial murders is of grave national significance and should not be ignored or twisted to conform to the ideology of any political culture.